Competing in a global world

[Jinsei]

I have read a number of posts recently about how much more competitive the world has become, and the importance of preparing our kids to thrive and succeed in the global market. I don't doubt the truth of this, but I'm curious to know what people think will help the next generation to compete.

For me, this means focusing on the soft skills such as communication, teamwork and people skills, in addition to the more traditional qualifications etc. Cultural awareness and language skills are also important in my view. And IT literacy is another obvious one.

But I'd like to know what others think. What skills and competencies do you think your kids are going to need in order to succeed in their future careers. And do you do anything to help them acquire/develop these skills? If so, what?

Soft skills, yes, also maths and science and developing a wide understanding of creativity. But perhaps most important an ethos of hard work: good things won't happen to people who don't try or give up when things are difficult. So ditch the concept that everyone can be "excellent", because that simply debases the concept of excellence. People are good and less good at different things and pretending that everything our kids do is marvellous is not very helpful. If they don't bother trying, there are plenty of people around the world who do and who will get the rewards.

I agree that work ethic is very important. Creativity is an interesting one. Crucially important, but not sure how you go about encouraging it.

Encourage kids to draw, paint, sing, build lego, tell you stories, look at the clouds, go to museums/galleries (don't mean fine art only), visit engineering sites, eg Thames Barrier, read loads of different types of books. I'm sure others will have loads of ideas.

Apart from those (good) points already mentioned, I'd add languages and spending some part of their education abroad - that makes you much more flexible about taking opportunities where ever they arise.

Besides those already mentioned, I'd hope that my boys get DH's balance of brilliant soft skills and geek mastery. Nerds with excellent communication and social skills rule the world!

I am preparing my sons to compete in an international setting. I have lived on 3 continents, my husband on 4, and he has worked/works in a very international setting so we have some vision as to what we think will be important:

An education which ensures an excellent command of maths, sciences, and ICT (programming). To make it easy to compete, attending a school which the world elite come to the UK to send their children to won't hurt. These schools have an international standing and are not resting on their laurels, with plans in place to keep them current well into the 21st century. They will go to university (hopefully) at a top American institution to continue this sort of education.

My children have a multi-lingual and multi-cultural upbringing and are being raised in a household with 3/4 cultures represented equally - 1 North American, 1 Oriental, and 2 European. They are brought up eating the different foods, dealing with the different table manners, seeing the different faces, and are tied to all of them. My children have family in North America, South America, Europe and Asia and therefore see the world as a fluid place. I don't know where they will eventually settle, but I want to make sure that they will be able to settle anywhere.

Momin has it sussed I think.

Though to replicate a simliar package would I think cost quite a lot.

If funds are limited, by goals equally aspirational, I would focus on development of character, determination,patience,flexibility,self-control etc

It will also depend on what the future career is.

Not every single child is going to grow up into a successfull business person- they won't all have the ability,and they won't all want to, and there won't be enough jobs going round, and there will still be a lot of jobs that simply need doing at a lower level to enable the successful business people to do their job. An economy that is made up of all icing and no cake is never going to work.

I am hoping to keep as many options as possible open to dc. They are bilingual and, I hope, open to different cultures, we are well read and talk a lot about the world- but they have also been taught to manage with a modest amount of money, so it won't come as a total shock if their actual desires and abilities don't lead to a well paid job.

With ds, I'd be very surprised tbh; there is nothing about him that suggests a high flyer. He struggles at school and clearly does not thrive in a competitive environment. Otoh he is brilliant with people and would make a lovely early years teacher, play pedagogue, midwife, policeman etc.

Dd is very bright, but she also has very strongly determined interests and the are not necessarily such as will lead to a high flying life: it's one of those things where you end up either very well off or poor- so it's just as well that she could cope with either.

Exactly the same skills I needed to be successful, I don't see any difference between what I needed 30 yrs ago & they should be doing now.

And yes I was programming on computers & learning 2 foreign languages almost 29 yrs ago, before you ask.

The one thing that surprises me is how, for the want of a more suitable word, afraid children and their parents are to move away from the accepted norm and home. From an early age I've encouraged my DS to think of going to university in the US. When I tell other mothers they are shocked, "surely you wouldn't want him to go to another country for an education' wouldn't you miss him" oh I would hate it if my DC went to live in anther country at such a young age you don't know what he might get up too!" As a recent mature student we were given the opportunity to do our second year at a Canadian university for no extra cost only one student took it up. When I asked the others why not they said they wanted to stay near their friends family dog/horse etc. The Chinese Indians Russians don't have this attitude UK boarding schools are increasingly common destinations for them they have no qualms about sending small children to the the UK and at 18 these children will be happy to consider universities anywhere in the world knowing that they have the full support of their parents.
Its time UK parents woke up the world is evolving fast we have two huge countries snapping at our heals IMO most worryingly for us and our children is China. They know what they want and see a "good education"as a way to getting it and they are prepared to travel and sacrifice everything to do it. At a recent lecture I heard a parent say that the Chinese lacked the "cultural skills" to integrate fully into a global economy; rubbish all at my DS school are fluent in English and capable of learning two or three other MFL at an alarming rate at these top school they are also learning the required "cultural skills." The same parent said anyway it would be OK if these super educated Chinese got top jobs in R and D finance law medicine etc because they would be in the UK anf thus our economy would benefit. I personally don't agree they are going to get the education, skills experience etc in the UK/US etc and take it back to China and benefit there own economy. IMO nothing posses a bigger threat to our way of life than the rise of China we cannot afford to be complacent the days when "Britannia ruled the waves" are over.

Interesting post, I do think the Chinese have struggled cultrually outside of China in the past, this is in part due to regimented teaching styles that stifled imagination and invention in the recent past. I read recently that China are now moving to add flexible and creative think to cirriculum.

I think we need to re-think what we mean by creativity as well. For a generation we have basically sneered at engineering/ maths etc (IT just about acceptable), but that sort of creativity is where the big careers will be - we are entering an age where technological advances will determine whether we can continue to all inhabit the planet without resource issues. First one to figure out cold fusion gets a prize!

I think people who say that the Chinese can't culturally integrate should probably consider the possibility that it will be use who are required to culturally integrate with them and play by their rules...... but that aside, Chinese culture has a lot of positives. It is very different from western culture, but Chinese people are generally friendly and very aware of how they make other people feel (e.g. concept of face) so whilst they appear reserved by Western standards, they generally have pretty high EI (in my opinion anyway).

At present, education standards in China vary enormously. Public education in rural areas is pretty terrible a lot of the time, and many children still don't do their 9 yrs mandatory education. In urban areas, public education is better, but not brilliant. However, it's not them we need to worry about. Urban children of well off/ middle class parents increasingly attend international schools in Shanghai/Beijing, study the IB curriculum, or go overseas to boarding school. They have excellent basic hard skills (numeracy, literacy, fluency in mandarin and English) and increasingly also very good analytical skills, and a massive work ethic. Chinese people do not come from the "so long as I'm happy" stable, or rather, they see personal success as a pre-requisite to happiness.

China has many challenges ahead of it- aging population due to one child policy, increasing demands for democracy and social welfare, massive inequality of wealth between rural and urban areas, the "migrant" issue etc. However, they are doing a fairly good job of releasing the pressure in a controlled way and moving towards a more benign political/economic solution.

A while ago there was an article in the Sunday Times about how we weren't producing enough engineers and skilled technicians and that this makes us less competitive internationally. Instead, says the article, we were churning out too many graduates with 'soft' degrees like Media Relations and the like.

The thinking was that we obviously can't undercut labour costs found in places like China so we need to focus on being more efficient and on high end manufacturing like aerospace. Hence the need for more engineers and skilled technicians.

I think that addressing the above is what is needed in order to be competitive as opposed to more proficient language skills. As it has often been pointed out, English is the language of international business so a foreign language is a nice to have as opposed to a must have

I was reading something recently about how many aspire to an MBA and how many are churned out by the year. The thing is they're are not going to be jobs for these people and investment banking will not pay $$$ again as in the old days.

I think generally what's missing in the UK is the work ethic & intellectual curiosity and this is what we will need to ramp up and instill in the future.

Difficult to predict what the future holds for our children, but...

DH and I have been in senior management in global IT companies for 15/20 years now and we would strongly discourage our children from doing "programming" or anything like this. The trend has been to swap expensive programmers with Indian/offshore cheap resources for a while now, it has now really seen a huge rise in our industry and highly specialised programmers have been pushed out. Also bear in mind that the era of bonanza, ie huge transformation type investments is gone now and it a lot of IT is repeatable business, integration or maintenance, so no need for high creativity or hugely high skill. Having said that, the Indian market is saturated with extremely highly skilled and hungry individuals and we should really fear it.

Also it is a lot harder these days to progress from programmer to manager/senior manager, mobility in the workplace is a lot tougher in large multinationals so I would be advising my children to go in as managers not programmers if they wanted to pursue that sort of career. A key indicator of this is that we used to recruit graduates from an IT background into programming, now most of the graduates we do recruit are to go into Management traning.

Having said that I know nothing about any other field so I guess it might well be different in other careers/sectors.

My personal belief is also that trying to get away from our culture of "as long as they are happy" is key - sadly this is the ethos in our schools and our society, it is not however in any of the other countries we are competing with and we are doing a massive disservice to our children if we shy away from instilling a hard work mentality in them. Although I do admit it is hard to go against the grain, I know I fail regularly.

MBA has had it's day I think. The point people missed was that the top flight MBA's (Harvard, INSEAD, LBS etc) had their value in networking as opposed to what was actually taught on the course, so even if you can imitate the course, you can't imitate the value unless you can attract a cohort of that calibre, which most MBA courses don't.

In any case, when you work out the actual cost of the course, including opportunity cost (i.e. salary forfeited) it's hard to justify it.

Gosh I agree, MBAs are a waste of time unless the company is paying for them (rare these days!). I have managed loads of people with MBAs, it certainly has never produced promotions for them. They cost around 20-30k these days (at a decent uni) so it's hardly worth it.

PS are with regards to being multilingual, well I have always worked in international projects and everyone speaks English. We've only ever had a problem in China and Latin America really, where we need to employ local people to speak the native language. Generally everyone in business is expected to speak Engish.

My children are bilingual (well nearly) but I don't see this as something that necessary for their future. I speak 5 language and never used them in business. OK it's nice when I get some stuff from other countries to read the original and I do enjoy travelling knowing I will mostly be ok as I do understand quite a few other languages too - but it's more for my own personal enjoyment than for career success.

I am sure that people will disagree with this!!!

DH is doing an MBA and he is only doing it because his employer has told him he has to. I agree that an MBA from a school not in the top 10 is not worth the time or money unless your employer is paying for and requires you to have it for a promotion. This promotion (he will be a President of the US subsidiary and an officer of the company) will result in a huge pay jump for DH - more than the cost of his MBA which they are fully paying for (tuition, travel, books, supplies etc). This MBA is probably tougher on me than him as he hasn't completed an undergraduate education.

English is the language used by business so I agree with yellowhouse. DH speaks Danish, German, English, French and enough Spanish to get pork to Central and South America (and get our house renovated!). At work he speaks English to his customers. He speaks Danish when communicating with HQ.

This as always stuck with me: There are a billion people in China. It's not easy to be an individual in a crowd of more than a billion people. Think of it. More than a billion people. That means even if you're a one-in-a-million type of guy, there are still a thousand guys exactly like you. (A. Whitney Brown, The Big Picture)

This is the world we are raising our children in. One in a million doesn't cut it anymore. To be one of the best you need to be one in a billion.

Someone mentioned the 'as long as the children are happy' argument upthread. IMO This is a luxury for the prosperous. Pretty soon the West won't be as prosperous as it once was. I fear this may be putting it mildly and we may be heading for the worst recession, even depression, most of us have ever seen. I hope I am way off. I am not a economist but I think I see this situation unfolding...

As far as learning another language is concerned this is a great thing to teach our children. There are many proven intellectual benefits. If they could learn Mandarin it may give them an edge. They wouldn't necessarily need to be fluent. It's a differentiator, a sign that someone is ambitious, forward thinking & internationally minded. Someone who can try to engage Chinese colleagues in conversation is likely to be better thought of than many others (depending on the job obviously). Imagine the scenario where a boss mentions there might be a stint in Bejing. Two equally well qualified candidates, one with a rudimentary knowledge of Mandarin etc.

There was an article I linked to earlier about raising Global children which talks a little about the ambition of the east & the importance of being internationally minded:

Meanwhile, 200 million Chinese schoolchildren are studying English. South Korean parents recently threw a collective hissy fit, demanding that their children begin English instruction in first grade, rather than in second. Nearly 700,000 students from all over the world attended U.S. universities during the 2009?10 school year, with the greatest increases in kids from China and Saudi Arabia. ?Not training our kids to be able to work and live in an international environment is like leaving them illiterate,? says David Boren, the former U.S. senator and current president of the University of Oklahoma. The gap between our ambition and reality yawns wide.

Its also going to depend on the child and what 'succeed' means to them personally, as adults.

If what you mean by success is employability - then a mix of soft skills, good work ethos, and a willingness to learn and be flexible. Rigidity is not going to help anyone much in the future, I think.

I think it's vital that we bring up our DC to be global citizens. Not only for their future employment but for the good of the world at large.

As for the former, I am prioritising as many things as I can to ensure my DC are best prepared for the international competition they will face. And this won't just be in the business type jobs IMVHO. Our DC will face global competition in all sectors.

Some of the things I do: prioritise languages. Not because I think my DC will necessarily use them but because they become part and parcel of life.

There is the assumption that DC will put in the necessary effort in their academic studies and extra curricular activities.

We also prioritse all the soft skills too. Communication, public speaking, attention to detail, creativity. Flexibility, flexcibility, flexibility.

Then there is travel. We regularly introduce DC to other parts of the world where they will be expected to adapt culturally.

Also, we lead by example. We show our DC that the world is a small place. That we are not afraid to move within it. That we are highly flexible. That we can and have to compete, but that that is nothing to be scared of, in fact it can be a gift.

Languages - Spanish and mandarin should be compulsory until age 16.

Flexibility. An ability to be adaptable.

Ouuu someone has already covered
It. I have worked in 4 continents and many countries and I agree with communication skills, flexibility and a can do attitude. Lack of arrogance also helps.